Something unexpected happened last weekend.

My husband was on a flight from Chicago returning home from a business trip. He sat next to a Dutch woman, Simone, who was stranded in the United States due to the suspension of all European flights because of the Icelandic volcano.

She told my husband of her travails and how her flights from Omaha to Chicago and then on to Holland were supposed to be right on schedule. Unfortunately, it took her getting to Chicago to find out otherwise.

She still had three colleagues here in Omaha waiting for their own flights to resume and decided to spend her “hiatus” in Omaha among friends, instead of waiting it out in Chicago alone. My husband told her that I would be picking him up at the airport and that we would be more than happy to drop her at her hotel downtown.

She invited us to stay for a drink to thank us for the ride. It was then that we met her colleagues: Michael, a British agri-business consultant now living with his family in Brussels but working much of the time in Africa; Javier of Spain, who lives with his wife and daughter and works in Madrid when he is not traveling for business; and Aurora, originally from Southern France now living and working for a company in Italy. Simone, originally from Southern Ireland, lives with her family and co-owns a fledgling company in Holland that produces food products.

Most of them met for the first time on this trip to the United States. Before they arrived, they were as much strangers to each other as they were to my husband and me.

The group was here on invitation from the U.S. Grain Council. They traveled to parts of Kansas, Lincoln and then on to Omaha, where they met with representatives of ConAgra to learn more about U.S. sorghum producers. Sorghum is a grain used in the production of gluten-free foods.

We invited them to our house for dinner. We picked them up at their hotel on Saturday evening. True to our Nebraska culture, we chose a menu of marinated flank steak and mustard-roasted potatoes but also added salad and a baguette to the mix. My mom, who was our additional guest, made up a lemon meringue pie for dessert and received rave reviews.

Our guests arrived with a children's toy tent shaped like a safari Jeep for our 3-year-old and several bottles of Spanish wine. They talked and laughed, entertained both of our small children and shared stories of their families and their everyday lives with us.

We dined on our patio and ate dessert by candlelight. When the late evening grew too chilly, we moved inside, lit the fireplace and continued our discussions of music, culture, politics, education and families, to name a few.

Around midnight, we all decided to end our dinner party. I dropped two of our new friends at the Dubliner Pub for last call and the other two at their hotel. They said they hoped to see us again, next time in Europe and I agreed that I hoped that is where they would see us again, too.

As I drove home, I thought to myself, “What an amazing experience!” You never know what can happen to you when you least expect it but are open to the possibilities.

It made me wonder how many opportunities to meet new people or to learn something new I have missed because I was selfishly absorbed in my own world or found it too uncomfortable to reach out.

But thanks to my husband I have the opportunity to say to my new friends, “We hope to see you soon, Michael.”

“Wij hopen om u spoedig te zien, Simone.”

“Esperamos verle pronto, Javier.”

“Speriamo di vederli presto, Aurora.”

I will fondly remember this night for the rest of my life.

Amy Grace, a stay at home mom, is married with two children. Read more from her here.

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